Children of the Corn

It starts off with a documentary feel, grainy black-and-white footage that catches us up on the mythology this film builds on – not necessarily the mythology of the series, just the history specific to this film.

You can tell by the cinematography the John Gulager is taking this seriously – it’s shot like a drama, without trendy flair or slick editing. We have an outcast in the middle of nowhere, the titular runaway who’s having visions, some washed out flashbacks, a few of which are walking daydreams. We get some acceptable gore in these shots, and it’s enough to make me wonder what’s going on, keeping us off-balance and freaked out, though not enough to really build up a sense of dread. This time around our small town doesn’t feel like a back lot set – it feels dusty and lived in. It’s underused though. The town is just backdrop for the story instead of giving off that sort of alien, isolated creepy factor that drives so many of these films. Our heroine brings a Sarah Connor kind of vibe, wandering as she does with her teenage son. As she starts to make good at the local garage, the Corn children begin thier murderous work.

I dig this one, and it’s safe to say that it’s one of the good entries with a reasonably original premise and solid film making. I do however miss the religious horror aspect – it’s mentioned in passing, but doesn’t really affect the film (until perhaps the last thrity seconds) and its loss is keenly felt. That said, the ending does set us up for a very religious horror kind of sequel. I wouldn’t however, count on Dimension coming through with that – there’s no continuity or guiding vision with these films, though if John Gulager were so inclined to pick up the reins and guide things in a direction, this is certainly a good place to kick that off.

All in all, it’s cleverly made, with one twist that is fairly obvious, but a second one thrown in towards the end that I completely didn’t see coming. It comes off as more a spin-off then a proper sequel, and that may be the best thing for this franchise.

*sigh*. Dimension Extreme. The sight of that logo on the DVD for Children of the Corn : Genesis bodes poorly for this entry. Dimension extreme is basically where they dump throwaway movies that they are making just to retain a license – and within the first five minutes that certainly seems to be the case here. (note to our future filmmakers – to make a children of the corn film… You need more than just kids and some pieces of corn . After watching nine of these, it’s obvious that this is something you guys don’t understand).

After the thoughtfull remake in 2009 this one seems to snap right back to the “anything goes” slasher mode – just throw some corn or country sacks in there and it’ll be fine! I’m pretty sure if I’d been following these as they were being made (rather than just me marathoning the whole lot of them) that I would be pissed at getting this entry next. At least it’s only 80 minutes – and some of that has got to be credits!

Okay, let’s do this.

Billy Drago is looking OLD in this one. He appears to be acting either in a studio backlot or very possibly just somebody’s backyard. This frustrates me – especially when the last film reminded us just how well these films work but only when they’ve got the backdrop of a small town. Drago’s gravitas is undermined by all the beautiful young people acting around him in this film – once again, to clean and too pretty for the subject matter.

About 30 minutes in somebody mistakes this for being a Hellraiser film – which isn’t terribly surprisingly since we’ve about abandoned anything really recognizable as children of the corn already anyhow.

We have an attractive couple, straight off the set of the latest CW show, land in the middle of corn children country, and slasher hijinks ensue. Occasionally unseen supernatural forces move things and we get a few brief bad dreams.

It’s possibly the weakest of the entire series and miserable way to end it – with a whimper, not even a yawn. Skip this one, and will hope that the next one dimension (the extreme imprint is gone now) release will be better. After all, it’s almost license renewal time.

Honestly, this series was ripe for a reboot. The sequels had been wondering aimlessly, and this thing needed a remake the kind of shake stuff up. I’m far more tolerant of remakes when the source was originally a book anyhow – we’re just seeing a new take on that original source material.

It starts off well enough, with a good looking font – some nice production values, and the quite frankly brilliant sound of children singing “bringing in the sheaves” under the tent of a revival meeting. It sets the tone and lets us know right away that we are back into rural, vaguely religious horror.

It’s bad news though when we are five minutes into the movie and I find myself really hating our ingénue. She’s a spoiled snob (or brat. I really can’t decide which is the more accurate adjective) and the bickering between her and her husband immediately sets my nerves on edge. However when the car hits a child coming out of the cornfield, I can see we’re sticking close to the original but updating it with modern brutality. The blood has been laid on far more heavily in this movie then what we seen in a long while. Malachi in particular manages to be even more terrifying here then he was in the original film – and that’s no small feat… Isaac’s right-hand man was always the creepiest of our corn children.

Much to my surprise, I find myself digging this. It feels so much less like the direct video director that dimension insisted on turning out for so many years, and more like the fundamental remake that we saw in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The horror is natural, with outsiders intruding into the corn children’s community – it doesn’t feel forced the way the previous sequel or two did. It doesn’t feel like we’re trying to shoehorn the corn children into our modern day era. The ominous messages written on every wall and floor in the church, scribbled on buildings and in the town – they come off as eerie rather than contrived. The setting of 1975 – almost 10 years earlier than the original film, adds to the isolated atmosphere. It’s a low tech time where vanished communities could still haunt us more effectively. It’s more than just competent filming and effective framing – there is a care in the production of this film that is lacking from most of the other sequels.

It’s not the eerie slow burn the original was. This is more brash with a greater action edge than strictly horror influence. It moves at a rapid pace – and this ends up being to it’s benefit. I never got bored, I never got distracted – I couldn’t believe how quickly this film passed the time. The first of these films since the original to have a running time over 90 minutes (though it does have a good five or six minutes of credits so it’s actually more like 88 minutes) and that worried me – but I felt like this one flew by quicker than any of the others.

I really like this one. I was actually surprised when I looked up on IMDb and saw such scathing reviews of it – and I have to wonder how much of that is playing from nostalgia for the first film. To me this is the literary adaption – I don’t hate Christopher Lees Dracula just because I happen to enjoy Bela Lugosi’s. I shake my head at the people who scream in outrage that this is the worst atrocity ever committed to celluloid – these folks obviously haven’t seen any of the other entries in the series. This is a highpoint for me, and a refreshing renewal, contrasted with the sharp decline that we got in the fifth and sixth instalment of the series. I can see myself watching this one again and again – possibly even more often than the original.

Of course, there is still one more to go… And when I see that dimension extreme logo – i’m filled with trepidation.

For a second I kind of had hope… I mean we’ve obviously hit a new era in the direct video series – we’ve gone past numbered sequels and into titled ones. Revelation (although IMDB also builds it as children of the corn seven – Resurrection). The quick cuts and flashes of disturbing imagery in this one remind me a bit of four and five, but then I got a glimpse of the exteriors (some of which let’s face it, are actually interiors) and the cheapness of it all dropped me right out of my suspension of disbelief and optimistic outlook.

What this is here, is strictly a film for license retention’s sake at this point. Now mind you, this doesn’t have to be a bad thing… the Hellraiser series has had its ups and downs and keeps getting made for very similar reasons – I imagine the license was set to run out about the same time in the children of the corn unless a new one got made so they both got sequels around the same time. Hellraiser however, has been in the hands of people who have a genuine passion for it… Thier biggest problem is that they keep getting hamstrung by dimension who slashes their budget further with each ill advised instalment. These children of the corn sequels suffer from the same budgetary problems, but additionally suffer from the revolving door of directors and production crew who are merely guns for hire with no real skin in the game.

Still, I like the creepy abandoned building, foggy blue streets and hurray! We have eerie corn children again, dressed in suspenders and old-fashioned clothes! The pale make up on them is a nice touch as well. This is the sort of stuff we should’ve been getting all along – and it’s a shame that it took a restricted budget to push them in these directions.

We have a young woman searching for her grandmother who was last known to be staying in a row hotel that is so rundown and creepy it would make 42nd Street crackheads in New York go “I’m not going near that place!”. The building is of course located near a corn field where eerie children wander, occasionally toss bloody corn (Man, this film loves mixing corn and blood for some reason) of the window and play hopscotch in chalked out pentagrams.

I know our ingénue, Claudette Mink from Kingdom Hospital – and she comes off a bit as a lower rent Maura Tierny. Also, what in the name of God is Michael Ironside doing slumming around this movie? If he were going to do a children of the corn film, he should’ve shown up three instalments ago when there was still some tread on these tires!

To be fair, the corn children have never had a great deal of characterization in these movies, but in this entry they’re not even people… They may as well just be scenery. They’re moving props. They’re certainly not characters.

I think my beef with this film is that it so different – both tonally and thematically. It comes with its own set of rules and concepts – The corn brings the children, and it grows magically where the dead fall or the children summon. There’s a greater evil driving everything – though no mention of he who walks behind the rows until a throwaway line near the end of the film. It’s things like this that make me leave I think the movie would have worked better in a vacuum. It could benefit from a name change and detachment from the whole children of the corn series.

It could also benefit from some polish – another week or two at the script, and a little bit more time and money – the sort of things that can translate into care and creative liberty. It might also have allowed them to have more than one or two corn children on screen at a time… I’ve mentioned before, the real scary thing about children of the corn is similar to the scary thing about zombies – 1 or 2 is no big deal, but a whole horde of them, (especially when led by a charismatic point man and his trusty second in command to give us some personality) that’s intimidating. Some creative, bloody kills would go along way towards comparing the ubiquitously cheap atmosphere that provides the film… Instead we get ominous warnings written in chalk, blood spattered milk cartons, that severed head and a lot of bloody corn, mixed with foreboding glimpses of the dead bodies the cornfield appears to be eating (I think?)

If you can make it through to the third act, there are some clever and creepy stuff that does begin to happen (Michael Ironsides finally has his first lines to speak about 19 minutes before the film ends) but you have to watch the film up until then for it to be creepy instead of just silly. The big problem, is that it feels so forced. We discover our corn children are specters, ghosts, demons or something like that. The period clothing is costume, not just the outfits they happen to be wearing. When this series began, and stretching all the way into the sequels, the look and motivation was organic. It was deep country fear of the unknown. It was religion gone wrong, and rural horror. It was logical, and it made sense. This is more like the monster intruding into our reality – and while that’s not necessarily a bad thing, it doesn’t really work in the context of children of the corn.

This is one of those I think I definitely wanna watch again, but I want to do so divorced from the rest of the series and coming in with the perspective of it being a standalone film. I think I may like it better that way.

If you feel inclined to give it a chance the next time the Syfy channel plays it (it’s a perfect fit there by the way – with its enormous amounts of bad CGI, fire and corn stocks ) I encourage you to go into it with that same attitude.

Children of the corn 666 is actually one I’d been anticipating, mostly because it features the return of the actor who played Isaac in the first film. The return of an old villain always generates buzz and excitement. The problem is, it’s also usually a desperate move to salvage a failing franchise. Seriously, think back over different franchises and tell me when this has ever worked? It’s not like Phantasm or Nightmare on Elm Street or Hellraiser where the same actor is portraying the villain consistently through pretty much the entire series. Think of house 4 – with the return of William Katt. Think pumpkinhead 3 with the return of Lance Henriksen. This sort of thing generally does not bode well.

I also can’t help note the tagline on the poster is “latest and most horrifying chapter”. This is almost the exact same tag line that they used on Hellraiser; Hellworld, and seem to be a variant of the same thing dimension was slapping on all of their late series direct to video sequels at the time. I also can’t help but note that this one was released in 1999 – a mere year after children of the corn five. Until then we had a pretty consistent gap of 2 to 3 years between sequels. They were putting them out regularly but this short gap tells me they probably filmed five and six back to back and then staggered the release. Children of the Corn 666 is the story of Isaac, the preacher kid from the first movie waking up from his coma just in time for our ingénue to roll into town. Somewhere around the third act he begins to gather the grown-up grandchildren and try and rebuild his cult.

The big problem with this entry, is it takes itself so seriously. Every frame is dire, and none of it is earned. The budget limitations are also on full display – we don’t get near the amount of blood and gore that we’ve seen in previous entries – one bloody corpse dripping and hanging from a tree nonwithstanding. They make do with the only real special fact that they have – namely the ingénue in her underwear – and there are plenty of shots of that. I also find myself still missing the creepy and countrified current children – again we got a group of people in very modern clothes, presumably because period costumes cost too much.

I must say though, Isaac has a genuinely good performance here. If you were ever to try and build a single villain into this franchise, he would have been the one. I think by the time we hit the sixth entry though, that ship has sailed. It’s a delight to see Nancy Allen show up here as well – she is as beautiful as ever, it’s like she never ages. Still, there is not enough her for me to recommend seeing this movie, and even the attempt at a twist (I say attempt because I think everybody saw this coming with in the first 10 to 15 minutes of the film) around the 50 minute mark falls extremely flat.

That’s the problem with children of the corn 666 – it’s not a bad movie, it commits a far greater sin; It’s just boring. I’m disappointed too, because there is actually potential here… There is a grain of a good story embedded in this – I can see the potential. Sadly, children of the corn 666 simply fails to achieve that potential. This one is a definite skip.

Children of the corn five – right off the bat i’m pretty sure in trouble when I see the title is “fields of terror “and see that Alexis Arquette is starring. The director is confident to, his name is first on the billing. Seeing Fred Williamson and David Carridine billed towards the end give me a little bit more hope and I actually do usually enjoy Eva Mendez, but not getting my hopes up considering how uninspired the opening is. Perhaps I’m being overly critical considering my love for the previous entry but man, Ethan Wiley has his work cut out for him here and I don’t think this little Elliot-from-ET looking kid walking towards the green screen is gonna pull it off. I want blood to kick this thing off, not lasers and lightning and adobe after affects. The kids look too non-descript, and I’m only 10 minutes out. Our corn children this time around dress and very contemporary clothing – and this detracts from the creepiness. It’s not just enough to have a shadowy kid pick up a scythe to make it scary. Thankfully we do seem to be at the tail end of the 90s, so the embargo on blood and gore seems to be lifting. The kills aren’t particularly original, but they are visceral.

The clothes are only part of it – our protagonists talk about how bad the town smells, they try and make a point of describing how boring the place is. That’s funny, considering it’s a farming community, and everything looks so clean and crisp. The clothing is too nice and trendy – it just doesn’t fit the narrative. Equally out of place is David Carridine’s cameo as the leader of this cult – it’s the first time we seen an adult that seems to be the head of our corn children and it feels very out of place.

I have to admit though, it passes the watch test. It moves right along at a good steady pace and never really drops my interest. I don’t know if there was some mandate that directed them to keep all of these films under 90 minutes, but really is to their benefit at this things are so short. There is a clumsy attempt to expand on the mythology of he who walks behind the rows. But it seems more thrown in for styles sake rather than story and is gone too quickly, failing to impact the mythology at all.

I got to admit, I wonder if I’m being too hard on this – it’s not necessarily a bad film, indeed it’s better than number three but that’s setting the bar pretty low and leaves this one pretty mediocre. At the end of the day, this is a very by the numbers sequel. A group of strangers blunder into the town – discover corn children, and murder ensues. It might be alright if you’re just looking for more of the same with a snazzier wardrobe, and I probably won’t change the channel if they were running this on the Syfy channel.

Here’s a suggestion if you’re not inclined to skip this one (and I don’t necessarily think you should – especially if you dig some blood and gore); don’t go and order. Put this one on after three – but before you go to four. You’ll better appreciate the Hammer’s solid performance and Eva Mendez charms as you watch the series gradual rebound from three.

This time around it sure seems like somebody is trying to redeem the franchise. Now I’m not sure who it is, because the year is 1996 and that places this firmly as a dimension films sequel, when they started cranking out franchise entries to any and every property that they owned, regardless of quality or logic. The end result was they started trying to drive the Hellraiser franchise into the ground, and the Prophecy franchise was getting the same treatment.

The good thing about this era though, is even though the producer shouldn’t care, and there was no money – if you are working on these films you were doing it because you loved these films and these franchises. That’s something that really shows here as we get a very cinematic entry into this series. This time around, we have kids that seem to be possessed by the old children of the corn – and the movement is growing. It’s not so much a religious conversion (although that is the most heinous baptism I’ve ever seen…and I watched Rawhead Rex at 12 Hours of Terror last year!) like we’ve seen in the other films, but more of a spectral ghost story with exorcism elements to it. It feels different, with quick cuts of terror and flashes of peril. Like I said, somebody is trying to redeem the series – not the least of which was shown by pulling in Karen Black for a cameo! There’s a blue filter to the colour palette here that we never seen before – and sort of dread that I haven’t felt in the rest of the series.

Even with the back to basics approach – cornfields and lots of children. I feel like the gore level has been capped but I found myself really enjoying this as a return to form. The children of the corn haunt this film – they don’t just threaten. They don’t just kill. The presence is felt even when they’re not on screen.

All this is good, because the story feels fairly insubstantial, but what it lacks in substance it makes up for in atmosphere. Perhaps it’s the supernatural possession aspect that’s really appealing to me here – he who walks behind the rows has always been a little bit of a paranormal creature, but this is the one where we really ramp up the the the ethereal threat. Of all the sequel so far, this is by far my favorite – I think I may even enjoy this more than the original. I lost track of how many times watching this I delightedly explain to myself “I love this!”

The story is of a reporter and his son investigating the Gatlin massacre while the neighboring town attempts to integrate the children who survived into their communities. There’s a great deal of this from the perspective of the reporters son – giving us a dash of youth appeal in what might otherwise be a little too similar, carbon copy of the previous film.

I have to admit, our new preacher kid and henchman – the standins for Malachi are not nearly as charismatic or interesting as our leads from the previous film, but it shows what is really the thread here.

Like a zombie movie, the threat in children of the corn is the sheer numbers. It’s a mass of characters hunting the individuals and the strength in thier numbers. The fact that it’s a horde, rather than one or two individual monsters really ups the creepy kid factor and shows where the strength of the series is. Curiously enough, we abandon that premise in the next sequel… but for now, children of the corn 2 is a fun watch – definitely a cable or video store kind of movie. It’s not something to necessarily be sought out but you don’t want to turn off if it’s playing in the background.

I’ve seen children of the corn before, and I’ve also read the short story… Indeed, my first reaction was “how can they get full-length movieout of such short short story?

This film, more than any other terrifies my wife. To this day she has a phobia of cornfields that is born from this film. Strangely, it doesn’t have the same effect on me. I’m not sure why, perhaps it’s a case of familiarity breeds contempt. It’s certainly shot well – the moment when Isaac comes out of the cornfield and begins to sneak up on Linda Hamilton shows a shocking degree of peril considering we’re only 20 minutes in.

In this classic story of a group of religious fanatic children that have murdered their parents and created their own sort of cul. I always feel a little bit like I’m watching the Star Trek episode Miri when I view this film.

You almost forget that it’s an 80s movie because we’re so isolated – we are so far away from anything else recognizable and the old-fashioned signs and trappings just fit here. They may fit even better because the town is abandoned. The children themselves are interesting and menacing, and I’m much surprised when we see them turn on their own – I didn’t remember that. However I could’ve sworn we actually see the creature they referred to as he who walks behind the sheaves. Here he’s only manifested as a glorified supernatural cloud, and the occasional lumpy ground. I’m wondering which one I did watch them where he appears!

I have to admit, it’s a good film – but what really sets this above a lot of other horror films is the soundtrack. Somebody put a lot of thought and effort into this music, particularly the choral moments that are reminiscent of the omen. Still, it’s hard to go wrong with Stephen King and I suspect that is a great deal of why this is such a cult classic.

Well, that’s one down – eight more to go!

HOLD THE PRESSES. Did I say eight? nope…make that NINE. They just released a new one THIS YEAR.

We’re moving on to the Children of the Corn franchise this week – and I’m fully aware of the enormity of the task I’m about to tackle… Who thought it was a good idea to make nine of these things? I mean I understand long franchises when you’re dealing with something like Nightmare on Elm Street – that has a narrative… I get multiple sequels to hellraiser – that’s perfectly suited to be an anthology with the through line… But children of the corn seems like there is not enough story there to really keep going for that long…Like the house series, I’ve got a passing familiarity with this one – I’ve seen the first film, read the short story, and I’m pretty sure I’ve caught one or two of the sequels… Part three was included in one of my horror box sets and that particular entry will probably serve as a franchise focus and boxset project review.

I’m optimistic – it looks like these things are generally pretty short, because running into a single two-hour entry in the prom night series just about killed me (more on that later) !

Children of the Corn has a special place in my heart, because it’s one of the few films that truly terrified my wife… I mean, this film messed her up. To this day she has a phobia of cornfields and gets nervous when we drive through the rural countryside… I think this will be fun.